Analyzing economic viability of implementing Redd+ in India: Cost benefit approach

The paper seeks to find the economic viability of implementing REDD+, a voluntary market mechanism which involves incentivizing developing countries to stop deforestation and forest degradation in exchange of payment by the developed countries, to achieve their greenhouse gas concentration targets. The net revenues to the farmers from undertaking the REDD+ program and from the next best uses of forest land i.e. using the land for Rice plantation is calculated. It was found that REDD+ comes out to be the most profitable option for the farmers of Andhra Pradesh. The effect of uncertainty was also taken into account by doing a sensitivity analysis of the results. The fact that REDD+ still came out to be highly profitable ensures that the model is efficient and robust even in case of uncertainty.